Beyond the Dyad: Infant Vocal Cues Organize Conversational-Turn Taking in Infant-Toddler Classrooms

Conversations with caregivers scaffold infant language development. The importance of conversational turn-taking is widely demonstrated in dyadic interactions, particularly in home environments. Less is understood about the dynamics of conversational turns in polyadic classroom environments where educators are responsible for facilitating conversations with multiple young conversational partners. This study used a microanalytical approach to examine conversations during ten-minute recordings from 29 infants sampled from a subset of hour-long videos of infants in early childhood education centers in Sydney, Australia. We examined the qualities of conversations beyond simple adult contingency to focus on both temporal and semantically aligned responses to infants' cues. The characteristics of conversational turns were then decomposed to explore how the likelihood of conversation changes as a function of infant vocal cues, caregiver response patterns, and the number of children present. Infants actively shaped their conversations with educators by directing their vocalizations to capture educators' attention. Directed vocalizations (educator-directed, object-directed) were more likely to receive a response than undirected vocalizations, and more speech-like vocalizations received higher response rates than immature vocalizations. Contingency rates varied across infants, but most responses to infant vocalizations were semantically contingent, regardless of who initiated the conversation. Educator-initiated conversations predicted longer turns than infant-initiated conversations. However, group size did not relate to the length of conversations. Educators were skilled at facilitating multi-turn conversations despite frequent polyadic interactions. The findings enhance understanding of the moment-to-moment interactions that shape language development and highlight characteristics of supportive language environments in classroom settings.